Today is the first day offers go out to the hoops class of 2019, and one such prospect jumped on his Michigan offer immediately. Clarkston (MI) big man Taylor Currie, an Ohio import who nevertheless grew up a Michigan fan, announced his commitment on Twitter shortly after John Beilien extended a scholarship.

Currie is, of course, the first commit in the 2019 class.

GURU RATINGS

Scout

Rivals

ESPN

247

247 Comp

4*, #19 C,
#91 Ovr

3* PF

NR C

NR PF

3*, #30 PF,
#149 Ovr

It's still early in the game for 2019 rankings. The only site to give Currie a full position ranking, Scout, released their updated rankings today. ESPN doesn't yet have a scouting report on him.

Currie still has some growing to do. He's listed at either 6'8" or 6'9" and 200-205 pounds. By the time he gets to Ann Arbor, he should have the requisite size to play the five in Beilein's system.

"Many of you are probably wondering why a football coach is speaking at an event like this. I may be a football coach, but I am an American first and foremost -- and all Americans should care about equal access to justice," Harbaugh said. "To me, it's not just about Michigan -- go blue -- it's about 'go red, white and blue.'

"The issue is about fairness, fundamental fairness. As I see it, if you have money, you have access to justice. If you don't have money, you have less access to justice. That's not the way it should work."

Harbaugh, who says he's always been a fan of lawyers -- from several of his personal friends to the famous "Judge Judy" -- said he became involved with LSC after attending a forum that showed him how many Americans are "left out" of the justice system due to their inability to afford proper legal representation.

Jim Harbaugh has to be the only guy on the planet who can say "I've always been a fan of lawyers" with seeming sincerity.

I'm not a baseball guy but the impression I get is that this is somewhere between a surprise and a shock. Zach Shaw has a post at 24/7 with some details:

1) This can be considered a huge win for Michigan: As blunt as it sounds, I liken Michigan baseball to a BYU or Minnesota football. It has some history to it, but generally a fringe top-25 finish and semi-regular postseason play is probably the highest realistic expectation thanks to geography, scholarships and other factors. Anything above that should be seen as truly special.

In baseball, out-of-state recruiting is extremely tough at Michigan; thanks to the low scholarship limit (12.5 scholarships for a 33-man roster, per the NCAA) teams often use a half-scholarship option. But if a player from, for example, Georgia is offered a half-scholarship to Michigan (cost of attending would be about $23,000), it would much cheaper for him to walk-on at Georgia (about $12,000). ….

Factor in the fact that few elite players come from the state of Michigan, and the Wolverines are at a huge disadvantage. Somehow, Bakich bucked that trend, pulling in top-25 classes every year (depending on the site, of course, but even being in the ballpark is unprecedented territory) and consequently a top-25 team this past year. The team went from 22 wins pre-Bakich to 29, 32, 39, 36, 42 in his first five seasons.

Simply put, if you luck into a coach like that — let alone one that isn't even 40 years old — keeping him away from more established programs with more baseball success (and money) is an exception, not a rule.

The general reaction to the Kendall Rogers tweet asserting that Bakich turned down Stanford is "WTF?!" Suffice it to say that this is a weird one. But a good one. (Also Big Ten baseball should leave the NCAA and play through the summer with full rides for all, but I say that every time baseball comes up.)

The other teams on that list are desperately undermanned outfits blitzing out of desperation. Michigan is the only team that is actually good at D.

Prelude to an 18-team conference. The Big Ten is thinking about extending the conference schedule to 20 games. That barely dents the huge imbalanced schedule issues going to 14 imposed: you'd still play half the league once annually instead of twice. That might create enough room to protect rivalries like Indiana-Purdue and Michigan State-Common Human Decency, and therefore slightly juice TV revenues. There might be other reasons to do it but none that the front office gives a good goddang about.

PHASE 1: round robin. PHASE 2: line is drawn between 7th and 8th teams in the league. Mini-leagues subsequently play round-robin. Rutgers is relegated to the Big East every year.

PROS: Absolutely fair. Winner is undisputed. Makes Big Ten title a huge important deal. Final six games for teams that make upper half would be knock-down drag out brutal free-for-all for league title. Would give top teams impregnable schedule strength. You could televise the schedule draw with Ronaldo and Messi in suits.

CONS: May cost league NCAA bids if the best team in the bottom half can't get any marquee wins in the last six games or the worst team in the top half just gets blitzed. Bottom half is just kind of sadly playing out the string. Uncertainty about final three home games may impact ticket sales negatively. Extremely distant possibility that the 8th best team 13 games in can climb all the way to the top.

In conclusion, anything that amps up the value of the regular season is good. Play For Stuff.

Or you could fix 2/9ths of the problem.

Rome costs. To the university, zero. To the anonymous donor, 800k. Manuel did a good job pre-empting complaints that this was a waste of money:

“It will be about $5,000 to $6,000 a person, so it was a great investment. It was just terrific. We pay them through an educational experience like Michigan does all the time. I don’t think about it in terms of paying our athletes but if people want to say we should give something to our students of value, I can’t think of a better way to invest in them for their lifetime and their experience.”

Manuel said the donor still does not want to be identified. Donors often make large contributions to athletics, and the donor can specify where the money should go or it’s used at the discretion of the department.

“We utilized the money he gave us,” Manuel said. “It was an unrestricted donation.”

Big time athletic programs spend a lot of money on diamond waterfalls and the like; this was much more educational and directly beneficial to players. Michigan shouldn't apologize for offering them whatever they can. They're not.

The loophole. You can't hire a football coach associated with a prospect, at least not if you want to recruit that high school for four years. (Two prior to the hire, two after.) But you can hire a dude's dad. I'm not trying to imply MSU did anything shady here because the dude in question is clearly qualified, but they signed Cody White this year; the year before they hired his dad as a staffer. Sheldon, the elder White, is coming off two decades for the Lions and is thus 100% qualified to join a trainwreck. It did jump out at me when MSU shook up its staff.

So. Actual football coaches cannot get entry level jobs because it might taint recruiting. But stuff like Ole Miss hiring Shea Patterson's brother or Tennessee hiring Trey Smith's sister(!) is still fine and dandy per NCAA rules. I'm not surprised, but I feel like I should be.

Etc.: Jordan Morgan back in the area after a 3-year Euroleague stint. This quiz is absurd but it only wants you to get five right. I got 9.5, because this is my job. I am angry at myself for knowing where Pop Evil hails from.

Coming off a 2-27 season, the Bulldogs will play at Michigan at Crisler Center on Thursday, Dec. 21, according to a contract for the game obtained by MLive. U-M will pay Alabama A&M a guarantee of $95,000 for making the trip.

Coach Willie Hayes' team finished No. 351 out of 351 teams in both the RPI and Kenpom's efficiency ranking in 2016-17.

Its lone wins came over Mississippi Valley State (344) and Prairie View A&M (313). The Bulldogs finished last in the Southwestern Athletic Conference.

This is literally the worst possible game Michigan can schedule. Not only is it an offensive blowout in the making the likes of the Delaware State football game, it is poison to Michigan's RPI. Any SWAC team is an anchor; the worst SWAC team is even more so. A win against a team like Alabama A&M hurts your RPI. It would be better to simply not play that game.

Compounding matters:

John Beilein has previously indicated that there's a chance Michigan will not play a 31-game slate. He told reporters at the NBA Draft Combine that due to a condensed schedule -- the result of two Big Ten games being moved to early December and the conference tournament being moved a week earlier to Feb. 28-March 4 -- he will not shoehorn in an ill-advised game simply to get to 31.

You're not even going to play a full schedule because of Jim Delany! If you've opened the door to not playing games, this is the game you do not play. Nobody buying a season ticket is going to miss it. You are actively harming your RPI by playing it. An intrasquad scrimmage would be better preparation for the rest of the season. There is literally no reason to do this. And yet. Here we are.

I wrote about how to make your schedule pretty five years ago. (Not coincidentally, Alabama A&M was on the schedule that year as well.) Find high-win teams from lower leagues who you have a 98% chance of beating instead of a 99% chance. This has a material impact on your NCAA seedings, as this year's tournament amply demonstrated. A patently undeserving Minnesota got a five-seed this year because they paid attention to the RPI's flaws:

MN is a 5 because their NCSOS is 27. It is 27 because MN played the following 20 win luminaries.

That and that alone was why Minnesota got a 5 seed and Wisconsin, which had a superior resume by any measure that was not an archaic and barely-tuned formula, got an 8. This matters, and every year Michigan plays two to four of the worst teams in the country. You're killing your father, Larry.

[Ross's] status as a Michigan lock for the vast majority of his recruitment has relegated him to an underrated status among most casual fans.

Josh Ross was a Michigan lock from the minute he stepped on the field at OLSM his freshman year, and he committed a year ago, and I've been all about the other two linebackers in this class. This is because Ross has been as out of sight, out of mind as it's possible for a consensus top 250 player to be. Then I watched the tape above.

Linebacker tape is often a compilation of comical offensive busts on which the LB in question gets to shoot into a ballcarrier without anyone even trying to block him. Ross's tape is not that. Ross stacks and sheds repeatedly—once he even does so on offense, violently discarding a DE to get into a route—before getting to the ballcarrier and terminating him with extreme prejudice. Another genre of play in that reel is Ross reading an attacking before an OL attempting to zone him can make contact. He cuts through trash; he times a number of blitzes immaculately; he shows sideline to sideline range. It's just a highlight tape. But it's a good-ass highlight tape.

Heck of a play by Josh Ross. Shoots the gap. Knows exactly where the play is going. No wasted steps with him https://t.co/jRtanieYAZ

The Ross grew up in a linebacker family, and was a four year starter at OLSM who racked up more than 500 career tackles. Only the odd injury early in his career prevented him from having the maximum amount of experience an incoming freshman can have. The end result is a high school linebacker with an uncanny ability to read what's in front of him. OLSM coach George Porritt's favorite Ross anecdote is an uncanny read…

“The thing was, I knew they were running that play,” Ross said. “They ran it like five times and I knew they were running the wheel route.”

As the play began to develop Ross made his move.

“I dropped back and the running back came out on the same route,” he said. “So I went underneath him and caught the pick and ran out of bounds. I should have run to score, but I felt the game was over and we could take a knee.”

…that Ross made as a 13-year-old freshman.

The default comparison is his older brother, the ultra-instinctive James Ross. Ross was an intermittent starter and Penn State obliterator who was 5'11" in a Not Don Brown defense, and a lot of scouting reports envision Josh as that plus three inches and 30 pounds. Josh Newkirk said he "plays just like his brother" after catching him at the Opening regional in Columbus; Steve Lorenz calls him a "bigger version of his brother." Tim Sullivan:

It's unfair to compare Ross to his older brother James, but at the same time, it's almost impossible not to. In physical appearance, playing style, even facial similarity, he's a whole lot like "Biggs."

Scouting reports that aren't referencing James emphasize the rough and tumble nature of the younger Ross's play. He is a hammer in search of a nail:

Scout: "Physical linebacker who is best when coming forward. Takes on blocks with aggressiveness and leverage and likes contact. Anticipates well and shoots gaps. A sure tackler who wraps up and drives through the ball carrier. Strengths: Instincts, Shedding Ability, Tackling Technique."

Allen Trieu scouting him against Dewitt: "…physical player … really comes down hill and loves contact. He is a strong kid who strikes with power. He shows good burst and straight line speed. We really like his size, physicality and his intangibles. He is a smart kid who reads keys … takes on lead blockers [very well]"

Tim Sullivan: "reads and reacts … with outstanding quickness, and he has the physical quickness to get to the point of attack in a hurry. He doesn't quite bring the same level of violence to the ball carrier that James did in high school, but isn't far off."

Brandon Brown: "…looks to be nearly 230 pounds. He's solid, stout, and muscular but still moves extremely well. …repeatedly took on very large offensive linemen before shedding the block and searching for his gap. … strong, athletic, in very good shape, highly intelligent, a natural leader, and loves contact. "

Clint Brewster: "…great instincts and gets a beat on the play with a quick first step. His ability to shoot a gap and blow up the ball carrier is uncanny. … won't give ground and will meet the ball carrier or fullback in the right hole and not get pushed backwards. … plays really fast but with a controlled aggressiveness. …exciting closing burst and plays with great confidence."

Chris Partridge: "He's physical, he's tough, and he's hard-nosed. He is one of those guys you think about when you think Michigan football and the level of physicality we play with here. He is going to be a middle linebacker for us."

Don Brown: "… tremendous fundamental linebacker. He is also an excellent blitzer. He is an aggressive player and a great tackler, and his fundamentals are off the charts. Josh plays with tremendous passion at the linebacker position."

Porritt: “reacts to the ball so well and (has) that instinctive ability to get to the ball. He’s got a lot of strength and power and is an intelligent kid. Works at the game, loves the game and plays it with passion.”

…explosive, big-play linebacker with an attack mentality. Lacks ideal length/range for an OLB and size/power of an ILB prospect. …Beats blockers to ball with quickness. Slips through seams between the tackles more than stacks and sheds with physicality. … Transitions smoothly in coverage and shows good range and athleticism. Quick to level off in zone, read the QB, underneath route development and close on targets with terrific timing, burst and balance. Does not project to be a guy who will win many battles in a phone booth at the college level; most production should come from his instincts and quickness in the short-area.

That is a coverage LB who needs to be sheltered from lead blockers and is not the player described by the other three sites.

In fact, those other sites think Ross's main drawback is coverage. While there were some positive mentions in early camp sessions, by the time he was a mature prospect it was consistently mentioned as the proverbial Area For Improvement. Scout's profile mentions he "can continue to get quicker and improve in pass coverage," and when it came time for Sam Webb to discuss Michigan's linebacker contingent at the Opening the phrases were along the lines of "a little stiff," "held his own," "adequate in coverage," and "can and will show better with the pads on."

The other source of dissent is, awkwardly, Future Blue Originals. Ace took in the 2015 OLSM-De La Salle game and came away a bit disappointed:

I'm still waiting for Ross to put it all together … still has moments when he gets taken out of plays, not because of his physical talent, but because he can be hesitant. … A big issue is Ross still hasn't developed any moves to shed blocks; unless Ross had a lot of momentum going and could bash through a guy, once a lineman got his hands on Ross he was effectively neutralized. … if the switch is flipped his ceiling is very high—he's big, fast, and relatively fluid for an inside linebacker.

… packs a heck of a punch …. There are no light or glancing blows; every hit is a hit. Unsurprisingly, he was consistently able to take on blockers and knock them back. The play at 1:00 is a nice example of this, as Ross bashes the tackle and ricochets off, which allows him to slow down the back and assist on the tackle. … (2:00) sees Ross knock back a blocker, escape, pull up to avoid a fallen offensive lineman, pursue toward the sideline, and make the tackle before the back can turn the corner.

I ran Ross's tape by Ace to see if his opinion changed and he did say that the senior version of Ross was displaying abilities Ace hadn't seen in person.

Per Lorenz, Michigan projects him to middle linebacker. Brown did mention he could play either of the fairly interchangeable ILB spots. Ditto Singleton; Anthony is a guy who will have a shot at being a linebacker version of viper(!!!) and could be a WLB. Michigan is apparently in love with all three.

Performance: Stud. Beast. Man. Animal. People from other teams — players, coaches, and parents alike — used these words to describe Ross throughout the day.

Studbeast Manimal is a 2020 recruit out of Louisiana.

Why Ben Gedeon? Uncannily close fit in terms of recruiting accolades—Gedeon was composite #215—and frame—he was listed at 6'3", 220. Gedeon became a hard-nosed middle linebacker with good range; his main problem was covering in space. Selected NFL.com draft profile takes:

Keeps pads square. Does a good job of punching blockers early and keeping himself in position to make a play. Shows ability to play off of block and keep his contain shoulder clean. Doesn't fly downhill unnecessarily. Plays with instincts in the middle. Processes well sifting through blocks and bodies to find the ball carrier. … Just an average athlete. … Lacks pursuit speed and reactive athleticism to consistently secure tackles in space. Gets engulfed at times and lacks a counter to unhinge quickly from a player's length. … Man coverage responsibilities could become a chore.

Gedeon got locked behind Desmond Morgan and Joe Bolden, the latter inexplicably, before emerging into a starter and fourth round pick his senior year. Ross probably needs a year to get up to the 230-240 range Gedeon finished in, but from there should be a viable candidate to start in the middle.

Other comparables include Morgan (the best stack-n-shed Michigan linebacker in recent memory but more athletically limited than Ross projects to be) and, yes, his brother.

Ceiling: High. May just lack the top end athleticism that would make him an early NFL draft pick. Otherwise seems to have the total package.

General Excitement Level: High. High ceiling multiplied by high likelihood he hits that ceiling equals high excitement level.

Projection: Like the other two linebackers in the class there will be an apprenticeship year followed by a multi-way war for the open MLB spot created by Mike McCray's graduation. With apologies to the guys already on campus, it appears the leader going into that war will be the freshman who gets the most playing time and practice hype this year. Prior to doing this profile I thought that was unlikely to be Ross; now I'd give him at least as much of a shot as anyone else, and maybe more since he projects as a thumper in the middle more cleanly than Singleton or Anthony.

Scout Rankings Update: Milton Gets Fourth Star

When quarterback Joe Milton committed to Michigan a little over a month ago, Scout was the only site that didn't rank him as a four-star. After last week's rankings update, that's no longer the case; Milton jumped to #261 overall. While movement was relatively minor for Michigan's other commits, their top uncommitted target at quarterback, Tyler Shough, also leaped up the rankings:

Shough checks in to the Scout 300 at No. 182 and is one of two quarterbacks out West to jump in to the 300 along with Camm Cooper. The Chandler (Ariz.) Hamilton signal caller saw his stock soar this off-season with scholarship offers flying in from all over the country. After seeing him up close at the Elite 11 Finals over the weekend, it was easy to see why. Shough is a pure passer with a great feel for the position. He has a smooth, easy delivery, is smart with the football and among the most accurate quarterbacks in the country. California, Indiana, Michigan, North Carolina and South Carolina are his finalists.

Michigan remains in excellent shape there.

HARBAUGH

DeSoto CB @GreenGemon dislocated his shoulder on a pass break up. He then popped it back in and broke up a pass on the next play.